There is a way that love--real, true love--can unlace you and leave you undone if you are ever so lucky to be submerged in its deep waters. It sometimes takes a community to convince you it's not just one person being nice. It may take days or weeks for your defenses to be dismantled before it has an opening to get through. All your good ideas and all your hard work aren't needed here; washing the dishes is enough. The only job you get is the job that anyone can do, because otherwise you might confuse your acceptance with your contribution.

You know this, because you do it all the time. You think if you cook good meals, if you keep the apartment looking good, if you're good enough in bed, he will keep loving you. You think if you call on the right day and stick to the script you can stay in their good graces. If you keep writing, keep producing, keep selling, you might be seen or heard or wanted.

You might not be standing alone at the end of the story.

You spin and labor and try, until the day you are wrecked by love. Then you remember the things you always forget--that you don't actually know what to do. That sometimes no doing is required. That you can stop, lay your weary head on the pillow and rest, and the world will hold together even without your tight grip. Your timing will unfold without you driving it with a whip. The affection for you in the universe will not not dry up so easily.

You listen to music and relax your face. You let it all catch up to you, and feel your own exhaustion. The people who know you best know the real work is happening now, that only good comes when you let your soul be mended by being undone.

Only courage lets you be seen in such a state. Only love got you into it.